Shaded by mature pines and a giant willow, the Lamont family plot sat apart from the rest of the graveyard, a huge marble angel standing in the middle of it. Brenna walked past it, heading to the newest graves. Her grandmother's, sheltered under the willow, a bench just beside it. Her father's a few yards away. Someone had placed flowers on both.
A pretty little place to be buried
.
Yeah. It was, but she didn't think her father had planned to be interred there quite so soon. He'd had big plans for his life and for his family. He'd sit at the dinner table every night, talking about trips that he wanted to take, new recipes he wanted to develop, books he'd wanted to read. He'd been full of life, a bookworm and a chocolatier, a guy who'd loved tradition as much as he'd loved adventure. He'd been a little bit of each one of his daughters. Maybe that's why he'd understood them all so well.
Brenna settled onto the bench, the coolness of the stone seeping through her jeans. Eventually, she'd have to go to the apartment, drag in her suitcase, let herself get used to the idea that she was home for a while.
Home?
Was it really that? After all this time?
She didn't know, but she guessed she'd find out, because she was here, and she had nowhere else to go. She'd given up the lease on the efficiency, said good-bye to the few friends she had left in New York, and left without a backward glance.
She ran a hand over her short-cropped hair, imagining Janelle's reaction when she saw it. She'd be horrified. Or slightly disapproving. Or outspokenly and overly supportive.
Things could go any of the three ways, because Janelle really tried to be the kind of mother her daughters needed. She just missed the boat. A lot.
“Things don't always work out the way we've planned. Right?” she said to the angel statue.
“They sure don't,” someone responded, the masculine voice so surprising, she nearly tumbled sideways off the bench.
Leaves crackled, a twig snapped, and a dark shadow appeared in front of her. Tall. Broad shouldered. A man, moonlight gleaming in his dark hair.
She screamed so loudly she almost expected the angel to take flight.
It didn't, but
she
sure did, her head slamming into willow branches, leaves falling all around her as she darted behind the tree and raced back through the cemetery.
She was pretty damn certain her feet never touched the ground.
* * *
Scaring the hell out of a woman wasn't cool. Chasing her through a cemetery to apologize? Even worse.
Both beat getting tossed in jail.
Which could happen if River Maynard didn't convince the lady he'd scared that he was harmless. Tough to do when he was wandering around a cemetery in the middle of the night.
Of course, she'd been wandering around in the cemetery too.
He'd say they were even, but he figured she was a local, and the police would be a lot more likely to listen to her side of things. He also figured that she had a better track record in town than he did. Not a farfetched assumption since River had been one of the worst things to happen to Benevolence in its hundred-and-twenty-year history.
Not his words.
Those were the words of the sheriff who'd been working in Benevolence when River was a teen. River couldn't blame the guy for feeling that way. Breaking and entering. Petty theft. Arson. River had even taken the radio from a police car that had been left unlocked in the church parking lot. He'd been fifteen at the time. Just young enough that the sheriff had taken pity on him. Otherwise, he'd have been tossed right back into the juvenile detention center his foster parents had pulled him out of.
Dillard and Belinda Keech had been taking in troubled teens for nearly a decade when they'd come for River. They'd heard about him through friends who worked with child protective services. A week later, they'd signed him out of juvenile detention and brought him to Freedom Ranch, a sprawling property right on the edge of a little town called Benevolence. A place for at-risk kids. That's what River's case worker had said.
It had turned out to be way more than that.
The Keeches had changed his life.
He owed them. Big time.
It was too late to repay Dillard, but as long as Belinda was around, River would keep trying to repay her.
That would be difficult to do from a jail cell.
“Hold up!” he called as the woman reached the cemetery gate and sprinted through it. She moved fast, long legs eating up the ground, arms pumping like she'd spent the past few years training to run the hundred-meter dash.
“Ma'am?” he tried again, because if Belinda got wind of the fact that he'd scared the crap out of some woman in the cemetery, she'd be stressed, and that wasn't going to help with her recovery from the stroke she'd suffered a month ago.
“I'm calling the police!” the woman yelled back.
The police? That was just what he didn't need. Not only would Belinda be hearing about him chasing some woman through the cemetery, she'd be hitching a ride to come bail him out of jail.
Again.
Only this time, he wasn't an angry young teen. He was a successful adult with two restaurants in Portland, Oregon, and no time to waste in a locked cell.
“No need for that,” he called, his tone calm and easy. No sense fanning the flames by being loud and demanding. “I just wanted to apologize for scaring you.”
“You didn't scare me,” she panted, yanking open the door of an ancient Chrysler and hopping in, “you terrified me.”
She slammed the door, and he thought she'd speed off to wherever she'd come from, tell whoever she lived with all about the guy who'd chased her through the cemetery. If she happened to know who he was, he'd be screwed. Benevolence was a typical small-town with a typical small-town rumor mill. Everyone in town knew he was back. Everyone in town knew he'd been taking care of Belinda since her stroke.
Everyone in town also knew his past, knew his teenage mistakes, his foolishness. They had good reason to eye him with suspicion, but he didn't have time to play up to them, mend fences, prove that he'd grown up, and become someone. There was too much going on at Freedom Ranch. Too much that he hadn't expected and wasn't all that prepared to deal with.
He was doing it. For Belinda.
Otherwise, he'd have washed his hands of the motley crew he'd found living there a month ago.
He reached the car, leaned down so he could look in the driver's side window.
The woman was sitting still as a statue, her forehead resting against the steering wheel, her shoulders slumped.
He tapped on the glass.
She didn't move.
God! He hoped he hadn't scared her into heart failure.
“Ma'am? Are you okay?”
“I've been better,” he thought she said, but the window was closed, her voice muffled.
“I can give you a ride home if you're not up to driving,” he offered.
She lifted her head, looked him right in the eye.
“I just ran for my life because of you,” she said, and this time her words were clear as day. “Do you really think I'm going to let you drive me somewhere?”
“Maybe not, but I hope you'll give me a minute to explain.”
“No need for an explanation. You go your way. I'll go mine.” She shoved keys into the ignition, started the car, and probably would have pulled away if he hadn't tapped on the glass again.
“What?” she snapped, watching him dispassionately. She looked . . . familiar. Something about her faceâthe angle of the jaw, the shape of the nose. He couldn't quite place it, but he was certain they'd met before.
“Do you live around here?” he asked.
“Do you always wander around cemeteries in the middle of the night asking women questions about where they live?” she replied, and he laughed.
“It's an unusual night. For both of us, I'd say.”
“You're right about that.” She grabbed a phone from the seat next to her. Maybe to show him that she had one. Maybe just to check for messages. For a moment, her face was illuminated by its light. Pale freckled skin. Bright red hair.
He had a flash of a memory: a young girl with long red hair and freckles, trudging down the road, a red wagon filled with books rattling along behind her.
One of the Lamont girls. Little Brenna.
That's what Belinda had told him. He wasn't sure why he'd been curious enough to ask. Maybe because the little girl was so much the opposite of every kid he'd ever known. She'd been clean, her clothes pressed, her shoes shiny and new. And, she'd looked . . . content, as if the wagon-load of books had filled her up to overflowing.
That had changed after her father died.
He knew that part of her story, too.
Just like he knew that she could be the answer to one of his most pressing problems. He needed access to her family's chocolate shop. Scratch that. All he really needed was a piece of the Lamont family fudge. That damn kid Huckleberry had eaten the last of Belinda's supply.
Huckleberry . . .
Just thinking about the eighteen-year-old made River's blood boil. If he'd known Belinda had a houseful of people living with her, he'd have been back for a visit a long time ago. Instead, he'd believed every word she'd told him over the phone. Probably because he'd wanted to believe them. He'd had a restaurant to run. Another one to open. He'd been back for Dillard's funeral two years ago. Once more after that a few months later. He'd promised a visit at Christmas but had had to cancel because one of his chefs had quit. He hadn't worried, because Belinda had assured him that things were great.
Everything is wonderful. The house is so peaceful. I miss Dillard, but I've got my friends, and my women's clubs
.
She might have thought things were wonderful, but there was no way in hell she'd thought the house was peaceful. Not with the scraggly group of people she'd collected living there.
He shut down the thought, forced himself to let go of the anger, focus on the red-haired woman in the old car.
“You're Brenna Lamont,” he said. Not a question. He already knew who she was.
“And?”
“Your family owns Chocolate Haven.”
“Is there a point to this, because it's after midnight, Mr . . . ?”
“River Maynard.” He didn't add anything else. He knew he didn't need to. She might not remember his face, but she'd remember the name.
Her eyes widened, and she rolled down the window, studying him for a few long moments.
Finally, she smiled, an ear-to-ear grin that made her look about ten-years-old. “Holy shâcrap! You're the kid who sheared all of old man Morris's sheep.”
“And his dogs,” he added.
“That's right. Three Old English Sheepdogs, shaved down to their skin.”
“It was summer. They were hot.” And he'd been young and stupid and itching for a fight.
“Is that why you let Henderson Baily's bull out of the pasture?”
“I did that because Henderson was an asshole.”
She laughed, a light, easy sound that rang through the quiet parking lot. “So, River, what brings you back to Benevolence?”
“Belinda had a stroke a month ago.”
Her smile slid away. “I'm so sorry. Is she okay?”
“No, but she will be. With enough therapy and enough time.” And a little more peace than what she'd been getting. River was working on that, but Belinda's “guests” were a touchy subject with her, and kicking them all to the curb was out of the question.
“I wish I would have known. I'd have sent her some flowers, come for a visit.” She brushed the thick bangs from her forehead, shook her head. “We've had a lot going on in the family this past year. I guess the news of Belinda's stroke got lost in the chaos of everything else. If there's anything I can do-”
“There is,” he said, cutting her off, because he saw an opportunity, and he wasn't going to miss out on it. “I need to buy some of your family fudge.”
“We open at ten. Stop in then, and I'll hook you up with some.” She started to roll up the window, but he put his hand on the edge of the glass.
“I told Belinda I'd do everything I could to bring some home tonight. It's the one thing she looks forward to after a long day at physical and occupational therapy. When she found out some punk had eaten the last piece, she started crying.”
“Were you the punk?” she asked, that smile hovering on her lips and in her eyes again.
“For once, I'm innocent. Belinda has houseguests. If they can be called that. They're more like squatters, making messes and eating her out of house and home. Huckleberry is one of them. He ate the fudge.”
“If they're squatters, you could tell them to leave.”
“It seems like it, right? But, the night I arrived back in town, I went to the hospital to see Belinda. The right side of her body was paralyzed. Her words were slurred, and she could barely speak, but she managed to tell me that she had people staying with her. She begged me not to make them leave. I promised I wouldn't.”
Never make a promise before you've thought it through, son
.
A man is only as good as his word. You utter that promise, and you're obligated to fulfill it. No matter what it costs you or how much it hurts.
How many times had Dillard said that? How many times had River rolled his eyes?
All that eye-rolling was coming back to bite him in the butt. If Dillard's spirit happened to be hanging around nearby, the old guy was probably nodding his head and smirking that smirk he'd always worn when something he'd warned would happen did, because River? He'd thought about tossing every one of Belinda's guests out, but he'd made that damn promise, and he couldn't.